The General's Mistress (29 page)

—
Just so. Fire is fire.—

And I felt it at my fingertips, my palms growing hot with it, limitless and vague, and knew it was only the smallest part.
Desire,
I thought.
Pothos.

—He smiled.
And Eros. And Thanatos. And lots of other things besides.—

“O Dove?” Lebrun’s voice cut through, and I realized I’d been silent, wavering. The room blurred in front of me.

“I . . .”

“It is too much for the Vessel. You should dismiss,” Noirtier hissed at Lebrun. “You should dismiss now.”

End,
I thought.
Yes.
I was very tired, and hardly knew why.

—
Dismissing is very rude,
he said.
It’s like pitching your friend out the front door when you’re ready for him to leave, rather than asking nicely or saying, “My goodness, it’s late.”—

I won’t be rude,
I thought.

—
Nor shall I.—

The room swam, and I fainted.

W
hen my eyes opened, I was lying on the couch. Bonnard was patting my hands rather enthusiastically, and Lebrun was fanning me with a paper.

“Madame?” Bonnard said.

“Yes . . .”

“Are you well?” Lebrun asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It was just too much.”

Leaning nearer so that the others didn’t see, he winked at me. He thought that I had feigned a faint to get out of specific questions, and that it was a good job. I wished the faint had been pretended. I felt terribly light-headed.

In the carriage on the way home, and later lying in my bed, I wasn’t sure if it had been real or not. How could one know? How could one prove it? Everything before might have been acting. This wasn’t. I wanted it too much, this casual communion with the numinous. It should have been harder. It should have hurt more. It should have been unpleasant and strange, not so oddly comforting, so easy.

Mad. Mad as my mother, preferring her mirror and her ghosts to real life. Of course I would imagine an angel with my father’s voice, with Victor’s sense of irony, with something in his manner that reminded me of Ney. I would make up a pastiche of men I had loved and admired, a dream of men I had trusted. I imagined that he was near, a concerned expression on his face. I imagined that he spoke. I imagined that someone cared.

I wrapped myself around my pillow and clutched it to me, crying soundlessly. I imagined that someone loved me. That was all. It was pathetic, really.

T
he next day I sent a note to Lebrun.

Dear Monsieur Lebrun,

While I am sensible of your trust and kindness in offering me a position in your enterprises, I regret that I will be unable to assist you in the future.

Sincerely,

Ida St. Elme

A
week later, I signed a contract for three months’ repertory work in Marseilles. I would play the nurse in
Violette,
the Sinful Woman in
Heloise,
and Sisygambis in
Alexander in Asia
. Sisygambis in particular was a good part—and, for a change, did not involve a lot of skimpy costumes or comic lines. I left for Marseilles the next day.

Nine of Swords

O
f my time in Marseilles, little is to be said. It was summer repertory, with a very small company and all that this entails: the sudden intense friendships and rivalries of people who live and work together day in and day out for a very short time, but would have little to say to one another otherwise. There were many things that seemed important at the time but weren’t later.

I remember that I had words with one young man of the company over his appropriation of my cosmetic brushes that seemed likely to burst into deadly enmity, and that I made love with another whose last name I did not know for no other reason than as we sat about drinking on a day we had only a matinee, he offered massages to any who wanted them, proclaiming that he was famous for them. When his hands were on me, I wanted them there. Or at least, I could see no reason not to.

There were some assignations that paid, of course. Gentlemen of the town who wanted to be taken for something, and to whom I had the cachet of novelty. If I did not amass a vast fortune in Marseilles, in three months I was no poorer.

As the summer turned and the days shortened, the days were hotter than ever, and anyone who could desert Marseilles for cooler places did so. The crowds in the theater thinned to nothing. So we ended the run, and some of us began to make our way back to Paris. It was time to cast the shows that would open at the beginning of the winter.

I stopped at a small hotel in Aix. The common room was stiflingly hot. Even so, the custom was brisk, and there were a number of fashionably dressed young people taking a cold supper before the empty fireplace. One of them, a young woman with dark curls fixed in drooping ringlets, looked very familiar. I was trying to place her from one of the many auditions I had done when she looked up.

Her eyes widened and she smiled, getting up and coming over to me. “Ida St. Elme? Is it you?”

“It is,” I said. “Isabella Felix?”

“The very same! I remember you from the auditions for
Iphigenia in Aulis
. You didn’t get a part. But then I didn’t either.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were in Paris.”

Isabella shrugged. “I was. But now I’m stuck here.”

“In Aix? Why?”

She rolled her eyes toward the party at the table. “We’re in pawn, my company and I. Moiret handles all our business. He’s the leading man, and the chariot is his. And we’ve spent too much, so it’s impounded until the theater manager at Digne sends us an advance on our contract. We’re supposed to play there next, but who can tell if we’ll ever get there? We need seven hundred francs to get out of this mess.”

“That’s a lot of money,” I said. It was about what I had with me from the summer contract, and from a number of liaisons along the way.

“I know,” Isabella said. “And we’re shorthanded, too. Two of the troupe decided not to wait and see if the manager would advance the money, so now when we do get to Digne we’ll need a new Third Girl and a new page.”

“I’m on my way back from doing Sisygambis in Marseilles,” I said. “I’d be your third girl in Digne. What are you doing?”

“Not
Alexander in Asia
!” Isabella said. “Don’t tell me you just did it.”

“I did,” I said. “Everyone’s doing it this year, I hear. Is it one of yours?”

She nodded. “We’ve got
Alexander in Asia
as our history,
Blue Beard
with singing, because you know how they go in the provinces, and we’re doing
The Comical Romance
as our comedy. That’s the one that will be hard to recast.”

“I don’t know it,” I said.

Isabella nodded. “If you’ve got Sisygambis, you could learn Sébastienne fast enough. She’s the girl who for some complicated reason is dressing up as a boy named Sébastien, and Orlando (he’s the hero, of course) falls for her without knowing that she’s really a girl, and all sorts of complications ensue, assisted by his old nurse who is in love with Sébastien’s valet, a silly sort named Roland who knows that his mistress is really a girl and the heiress of a vast fortune that’s coveted by a rogue named Thierry who—”

“I think I get the idea,” I said. “So the part open is the girl who dresses as a boy?”

“Yes. And carries off the masquerade in breeches onstage. The men come to watch a girl with nice legs. And, of course, you’ve got Pompey onstage, which is always an adventure.”

“Who’s Pompey?” I asked.

“Moiret’s pug,” Isabella said. “He loves to be onstage, and Moiret swears he’s a trouper. He’s always good for a laugh.” She sighed. “But we’re still stuck here until the manager advances the money. Hoping he will.”

“I’d lend you the money,” I said. “But I’d have to have it back soon. It’s all my earnings from the summer. If you’d take me on as third girl. I’m not especially in a hurry to get back to Paris.”

T
he next day I was off for Digne with Isabella’s company. The “chariot” turned out to be an open farm wagon that someone had enterprisingly painted bright green. It carried the costumes and baggage of the company, plus the eleven human members, Pompey the pug dog, the soubrette’s parrot, and Isabella’s Angora cat. We looked something like a circus as we traveled along the road at a snail’s pace, practicing the songs from
Blue Beard
while Pompey and the Angora snarled quietly at each other from under the sideboards.

At last I got out and walked, wearing the old pants and coat belonging to Charles. Moiret and the others agreed that I cut a nice figure in pants, and would be just what was needed for Sébastienne.

Isabella laughed. “You carry that off so well that they’ll think you’re really a young man until unveiled as Sébastienne! They’ll be wondering if we have a woman dressed as a man or a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man!”

I shrugged. “That suits me,” I said. “I enjoy it.”

“I believe you do,” Isabella said, looking at me more keenly.